The multiple-candle glow from the Mephistophelian coat-of-arms lit the
girl-soul’s features. From a veil that well might have been worn on
Earth for mourning, so black was her hair and enveloping, they gleamed
as if carved from Parian marble. The curve of her chin, the fullness of
lips blent into faint, downward-traced lines, the tube-rose texture of
her cheeks, all lent a suggestion of pliancy, even weakness. Above, her
classic nose and broad forehead offered contradiction--were sculped as
from a master’s inspiration.
Lesser wonders as to the personality behind the marble mask merged
into that aroused by her eyes. Colored like the purpling depths of
a midnight sky, they concealed, rather than revealed. From beneath
straight brows they gazed forth, not as a hope that is lost in
darkness, but as hope resting from its weariness, to rise again at
dawn. Over her face they shed a light of mystery that made its beauty
negligible--a mystery based neither on courage nor fear, pride nor
shame, joy nor dole. They asked what confused the mind and haunted the
imagination, that demand of why--_why_--to which only the Creator of
souls Himself one day may make satisfactory reply.
Intently as the spirit-girl studied the new arbiter of her sorry fate
was he studying her. At first he did not move. Then the finger-tips
of his one hand sought those of the other. As they met, the ruby-red
setting of his signet ring discharged a spark.
“The sight of you sounds like some song of Destiny,” said he.
“And only Destiny could be accountable for her present plight.” The
crippled soldier, handling his crutch with the skill of long practice,
approached the throne. His one heel clicked against the floor in a
salute peculiar to the wars of yester-year. “Might I say a few words,
sir, for this young mother? I got to know her well on the awful journey
into Shadow Land.”
Satan, turning to him, saw that age had not blurred a youthful
eagerness in his parchment face and the faded blue of his eyes.
“And why,” he scoffed, “should you speak a few words for her, or a
couple, or even one--you, a mere piece of a man?”
“That you will know, sir, after you know her. A mere girl she is.
Nothing truthful, I’m sure, could be written against her account in the
records of Earth.”
“You evade my question.” Royal annoyance over the interruption
was turned from him to his sponsors. “Why, you imperfect seven, a
one-legged veteran of a past decade?”
The prime minister intervened. “Old One-leg here is not so weak a new
idea as he looks. While he has not fought in the latest battles of
Earth, he has been absorbed in them, he says, and theoretically knows
all there is to be known of modern tactics.”
His Highness’ shoulders shrugged. “None can say that I am not glad to
believe the worst of every man. Has he a passport?”
Aloud he read the soldier-shade’s card:
“Samuel Cummings, N.C.O. In youth deserted when battle was on. Changed
his name and lost his identity for a time. Later reënlisted, was
wounded in service, but not distinguished. Called from Soldier’s Home.”
The cripple’s free hand brushed one ear, as if forcefully to eject the
words. “I deserted, yes. But she lay sick abed, my girl bride, and
I loved her better than myself. Afterwards not a man in our company
fought more careless than Corporal Sam. But we had a saying at the Home
that you’ve got to be conscripted into the army of death. Only cowards
volunteer.”
“Once a deserter, always one,” His Highness made remark. “Don’t you see
that more important affairs than yours await? Just remember this, no
wife is worth deserting a good fight for.”
Corporal Sam, with head sagging and shoulders disturbed by more than
his crutch, stepped aside. But a wonderful light shone from his blue
eyes into the Satanic gray ones.
“I know,” he muttered, “that what made my Mary Gertrude worth deserting
for can’t ever die. I saw her in the border fields this very evening.
She couldn’t go on, you see, without me. She had promised to wait
around for me until----”
“Silence, old nuisance,” Sin advised. “One doesn’t mention the Second
Call in The Presence.”
He need not have feared. His Majesty’s attention had returned to the
girl-shade. A long moment he studied her; closed his eyes; quickly
opened them to study her again. The puzzlement at first on his features
changed to semi-recognition.
“That look in your eyes---- What is it, that look? I seem to know you,
woman, although I cannot place you. Do you remember having seen me
before?”
“I don’t think that I ever have seen you. But I’ve known men on Earth
that resembled you.” Her voice was that of a cathedral bell retarding
over the last phrase of the hymn.
“It must be that I have trailed you afar, probably at the start of the
career that brought you here. Let us see how you’re written down in
Mors’ copy from the book.”
Sin transferred the card from her clutch. With characteristic bravado,
he read the start of it aloud.
“Dolores Trent, Grief to Men, and bastard babe.”
“What’s that you say?” With unwonted eagerness, Satan possessed himself
of the passport. “That is quite a title, ‘Grief to Men.’ I like it.”
He smiled peculiarly while giving his eyes to Earth’s verdict of the
newcomer, as transcribed from that tome called “Judgments of Men” which
is in charge of Mors, keeper of the Great Gates into Shadow Land. From
between the two lines of his strong, white teeth, his tongue appeared
and smoothed both lips.
The girl-soul, with the equivocal expression of one both fascinated and
repulsed, watched him as he read:
“Dolores Trent, known as ‘Grief to Men.’ A cause of disaster from
first breath to last. Her birth caused the death of her mother, whose
loss brought her father to ruin. Directly responsible is she held for
the wrecked careers of a successful merchant, an eminent Divine, a
skilled healer, a previously exemplary millionaire, and an attorney
of repute. As a climax, the supreme crime of womanhood is hers--an
illegitimate child. Through life she has spread sorrow in her wake.
Unto death she carries her murdered ill-begot, a suicide without
repentance or appeal.”
The King commented: “Æons have come and gone since I have felt
surprise. Completely did that look of yours deceive me. And Raphael
must have altered the face of his Madonna had he first seen yours.”
Arising, he stepped from the dais, settled his crown a trifle more
to one side and slicked his vandyke with meticulous care. He then
approached the cowering figure on the steps.
“It is unseemly that you should remain upon your knees, madam or miss,
when many stand who probably are not half so bad as you. Allow me.”
Stooping, he lifted her to her feet.
She straightened to face him with a show of bravery.
“I was misunderstood on Earth,” she said. “In this existence, I hope
for justice.”
“Fear not,” he assured her. “In Gehenna you shall receive justice,
Dolores Trent, as meted by that world which has learned you to its
sorrow and, it would seem, to your own.”
“I’ll tell you--I swear to you, sir, that I have done no man willing
wrong.”
He greeted her protest with a punctilious laugh, as though over an
attempt at wit.
“Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief----”
“But you will not punish my baby for my faults?” A breeze of terror
swung the cathedral bell. “Only look at her, sir. She is too tiny, you
see, for the vaguest thought of wrong. To her, at least, be merciful.”
“Oh, Hell, be merciful!” Satan mocked her. “That too-late wail has been
dinned into my ears until it is a wonder that I can hear you at all.
Cheer up. You won’t have to part from it--I beg its pardon--_her_. Have
you not heard that a child conceived in sin must take his--its chances
with her progenitors?”
At the low, protesting cry which escaped the mother, he laid a hand
on her shoulder, then allowed his arm to settle about her, as though
measuring her height by his own. His touch appeared to repulse her.
Shuddering, she passed the infant shade to the other arm and stood
irresolute, evidently trying to decide how best she might release
herself.
A commotion at the door claimed the court’s attention. Through the
light-striped hangings, slipping from the grip of the pygmies, two
comely creatures seemed verily to float across the throne-room, a youth
costumed as a knight and a guileless-looking maid. He, drawing her by
the hand, pressed toward the group before the dais. Lithe of body and
ardent of eye, he caught the arm of the King and sought to remove it
from about the suppliant’s form. As the pursuing dwarfs seized him with
their over-long reach, His Highness found himself looking down into the
flower-face of the girl intruder--into eyes shy and fearless as violets
at dawn.
“And whom,” he enquired, “have we here?”
The minister undertook to announce them. “A pair by the stagy names of
Innocentia and Amor. They call themselves guardian spirits and have a
talent, which few share with Your Excellency and myself, of absolute
invisibility. They lined up in a most theatric way beside the wench
Dolores outside the door. As they had no passports and did not seem to
belong, I sent them back--or thought I did.”
Satan considered Sin and them. “Where is your sense of humor, Old
Original, that you explain them to _me_? I can’t say that I should have
regretted Amor. We have all varieties of him down the Lane of Labors.
But Innocentia! You might have appreciated that I seldom get a chance
to see her wings flutter or hear her heart beat from fear. Tell me, you
two, what madness is driving you?”
“There has been some mistake about the girl Dolores,” Amor declared.
“Earth has passed another false judgment. Shouldn’t I know who have
been with her since first she met the father of her child?”
“You refer, I presume, to her husband?”
The love-lad’s head threw back in defiance at the jibe. But Innocentia
flushed as she took up the defense.
“I have been with our dear Dolores always, more a part of her than the
blood in her veins, since that has ceased to flow and I am come with
her into Shadow Land. She has heeded all my cautions against the wiles
of men. Never once has she offended me.”
“More sinned against than sinning, eh?” His Highness plucked an
imaginary tear from one eye. “Often as a woman has been damned have I
heard that plea.”
“Only see for yourself, Sire, how she shrinks from your touch--how she
suffers. We pray you, release her.”
“Little pest, don’t you know that I enjoy defying you?”
Even as he scoffed, however, his clasp of the mother relaxed. He
ascended the steps and reseated himself in the throne chair.
“Innocence and love--certainly a strange companionship,” he observed.
“Odd that they don’t fade out, when they are less material than the
dimmest spirit in the inter-world. Shoo them back whence they came,
ushers. We must get to the case in hand.”
“Oh, I beg you, sir, let them stay!” Dolores interceded. “You’ll find
that they enter and exit quietly as thoughts of the mind.”
“Thoughts of the mind get very much in my way,” Satan snapped.
At his show of impatience, Innocentia pressed her lips to the cheeks of
the babe. “Do not distress yourself, Dolores dear. It is best that we
should disappear. But in Gehenna, as on Earth and in the Fields, we see
no gates and acknowledge no commands.”
“Always remember,” Amor added, “the great love of John Cabot. Send him
the strength of your good faith. In your late life it did seem that he
forsook you. But when he comes to the mystery world, he will seek you,
never fear.”
“I shall remember,” Dolores assured them in a low aside. “That night we
said our vows, I swore that I believed. Despite appearances, Amor, I
do--I _must_ believe.”
Old Original approached them. “Why unwind these fare-ye-wells when your
taxi’s waiting? Accept my arm to the door, Miss Innocentia. You look
almost overcome.”
Waggishly he escorted her out.
The while His Majesty’s frown lowered to the pygmean pair salaaming
before the dais.
As in one whine they put the formal demand: “To what futile labors, O
King, shall we consign these recruits?”
Satan shaded his eyes with one hand. He appeared not to be thinking so
much as looking. As if from under a blower, the inflammable imagination
of him glowed--glowed on Dolores Trent.
The prime minister, on returning, settled in his chair and claimed the
keen ear which, through ages past, had considered his suggestions.
“This modern Delilah, Excellency, I consider unique in that she cannot
be classed by the naked eye. She is not, so to speak, a type. Might I
call your attention to the tact with which she maintains silence, while
you----”
“You might not. I detest to have fine bits of the play diagramed by my
seat-mate. Have I or have I not eyes of my own?”
“But, Sire----”
“But the buts! Haven’t I paid at least as much admission as you?”
All eyes focused upon the Master, except those of the ancient
hypocrite. His settled appreciatively upon her who indeed had
distracted the royal resentment from himself. The pause which lapsed he
had the temerity to break, although in a vague voice, as if to himself:
“Hell to be lonely.... Some sympathy soul.... Boss looker like you....
Try anything once or twice.”
“Try anything once and forever except hoodwinking me.”
If Sin’s pride was hurt by the King’s public rebuke, it must have been
salved next moment with the proof that his advice was being found
tenable.
His Highness to the court: “As a bad lot, this earthling pair would
seem to deserve labors different from any yet devised. Until I decide
upon some special form of punishment I shall keep them in the palace.
Dame Dolores comes highly recommended to my ingenuity. That I may
observe her vices, I appoint her for the nonce First Royal Entertainer.
She shall relate to me those griefs which she has caused on Earth.”
His glance veered to the veteran.
“Always have I envied the angels their ability to weep--never have
lived down the ambition to emulate their pietism with just one tear.
Mayhap I shall be moved to that extent by these earth-tales of Grief
to Men. I am _so_ temperamental. In view of which possibility, Samuel
Cummings, I hereby create for you the office of Holder of the Crocodile
Tear Bowl to my Majesty. As for the bastard babe----”
Dolores, at his flint-hard gaze, clutched closer the tiny soul of her
soul. Intensely she awaited his words.
“Don’t crucify yourself with maternal fears, my beauty. We are pleased
to let the Littlest Devil stick around. Ever notice how the strongest
villain has weakness for a brat? Yours is about as young as they
come--almost a native, one might say. He will give the palace a homey
look.”
“She, sir.”
“_She._ I beg _its_ pardon.”
“You are so much kinder than I was led to expect.” To his consideration
the young mother lifted the radium glow of her gratitude. “From hints
I heard at the Mystery Gate, I gathered that you were--that you might
be----”
The delicacy of such comment was impressed upon her by the interested
expression of its subject. As she paused in confusion, a Balialic smile
lightened his countenance.
“Beginning on me already, sweet Grief--and with the old baby-eyed
confidence game? Even so, you are different from the rest of the damned
Delilahs.”
Unexpectedly he clapped his hands. Invective, sarcasm and abuse greeted
the courtiers and pages who sprang to receive and execute his orders.
“Get the machinery of this court geared up, will you? Light the snuffed
lucifers that are supposed to illuminate my life. Affairs in general
are going to be run more according to the ways of Earth, or certain
helliots will be put through their third and last degree before their
appointed time. You, tell that new chef that I have some few untried
torments for him if he does not excel his predecessors to-night. He’s
to prepare a banquet that will taste as well as look. Dynobasco Sauce
for my burnt-out stomach, the mead that sears to wash it down--all
the trimmings. And you, tell the head landscape gardener that I want
moonlight to-night--gobs of it--and a free play of juice through the
Garden of Bad Luck. Have him throw the limit in effect--fountains and
foliage and tropical bloom. I want the mistress of royal robes paged at
once. Wonderful electrician though she is, she hasn’t had a worthwhile
order since Cleopatra cast me for Anthony II. in a little domestic
drama whose tragic last act rather overbalanced the light lines of the
start. We shall see what her genius at fabric effects can do for this
trail-worn lady. Remind her of how Shakespeare once remarked: ‘Glad
rags don’t spoil the work of any tragedienne.’”
The crook of a royal finger brought Old Original to his side.
“Sin, I wish you personally to see to the selection of a suitable
tear-bowl. Take care that it is polished. Our electro-silver plate
tarnishes so quickly from its own heat. And make sure it doesn’t leak.
My first crocodile tear must be preserved--a glittering trophy to adorn
the filet of m’lady Grief. Now begone, all of you. The biggest little
séance since Creation is going to commence to-night.”
Alone, to his reflection in the mirror, he telepathed:
“I know that she is different from the different effect on me. Because
I don’t doubt that she’s bad, I don’t dislike her looking good. She is
unique, this Dame Dolores. I may be able to use her. Should I approve
her method in those troubles she caused on Earth, I just might show her
some larger responsibilities.”
* * * * *
Through the seven courses of that most remarkable of feasts, the
spirit-girl Dolores exerted herself to please their Satanic host,
for sake of her babe if not herself. Splendid beyond words was his
appearance, from his scintillant crown to the hem of a mantle charged
to imitate iridescent metal cloth. Corporal Sam Cummings she scarcely
had recognized, so changed was he by the steel-scaled costume of an
old-time knight in which he came arrayed, a veritable “armour of light.”
Without vanity, she appreciated the kindly soldier-soul’s gasp at first
sight of her, having herself been surprised by the achievement of the
mistress of robes.
A twist of green flame bound her hair and suspended one large drop,
like an emerald of great price, low upon her brow. The rays of her body
garment clung close, representing a material sewn through with threads
of gold. This fell only to her pearl-roped ankles, but a long cloak of
translucent green waved behind her when she moved, like the following
billows of the sea.
Her beauty she had learned to deplore. To-night she feared it.
Something worse than admiration had shone in the lurid gaze of the
prime minister and lesser courtier demons, something disturbing in the
silent, critical inspection of His Highness.
Gracious enough had been Satan’s manner. Not until he sampled the
last course of the delusive seven did his irritation break bounds. He
demanded the presence of the first chef.
“What was my last promise if you didn’t concoct something I could
taste?” he demanded of that unworthy. “Why do you suppose I had you
heat-tormented to suicide in the _Brillon_ kitchens in Paris if
I didn’t expect you to do better by me gastronomically than your
predecessors? I have been improvising tortures for cook-soul failures
for more centuries than the blades of near-grass used to tint this
pistache ice. Bah, heats me to look at it! Soon as I can replace you,
into the hole for Traitors to Mothers you drop.”
The wretch wrung his hands. “Not there, your Majesty! I loved my
_mère_. And is not my present labor futile enough? Almost do I despair
of tempting the palate of an immortal, with nothing but chimeras as
ingredients--with flour of the bleached dust of hopes and paprika and
baking-powder of imaginary ground brick or brimstone.”
“I do not grant that your labor is futile,” Satan snapped. “Surely
you’ll agree that the Ruler of Greater Gehenna deserves the Epicurean
joys afforded gluttonous nobodies of Earth? I want to _eat_, I tell
you. Of course I am more or less immaterial. Every soul in Shadow
Land is, the new-comers less, the old-timers more. But the appetites
of Earth appeal more to me than the self-sufficiency of the angels. I
intend to have them--and to have them satisfied. If by to-morrow you
have not risen to the concoction of something to tempt me, into the
hole for Traitors to----”
With what sincerity she could assume, Dolores interposed. “I am sure I
never tasted a more delicious pasty.”
“Is that true? Can you _taste_ it?”
Satan’s gaze was upon her with the questions, his expression more than
wontedly repulsive from greed. Then wrath at her caught him.
“Liars are to be commended in a bad cause, but _pitiers_! You must
conquer such impulses. Acknowledge that you have experienced only the
vaguest reminiscence of taste. Come, let us leave this farce of a
feast. I have chosen my Chamber of Chance as the most fit setting for
your tale of the game of life. Lady champion of griefs, precede me.”
He pushed back from the table. The attendants scrambled after his
example. The head butler turned Dolores’ chair. She found herself
sweeping past the demon parasites, then past His Majesty, standing with
head bent and hand on heart, a derisive smile upon his face. A page, at
a gesture of the King, gathered up the phosphorescent billows of her
mantle.
She fell into the accent of certain strains of music which were playing
a dim, yet definite march of the dead. No ocean ever sobbed more
sympathetic plaint. No snarl of fife or beat of drum ever timed sterner
step. The music between two spheres--had Handel heard it in his dream
of Saul?
* * * * *
The Royal Entertainer was placed in the strongest light at a faro
table which centered a room black-hung and artistically dimmed for the
occasion. Satan sat opposite as a mere auditor, his eyes glowing like
lit lamps from the shadow.
“A hint or two or three before you begin,” said he. “Remember that the
story’s the thing. If it doesn’t grip, aside from the fact that you are
telling it, you’ll have failed in your art. You’ve read some of the
old-fashioned French novels, I hope?”
“Oh, yes, Sire, and in the original. My father was a translator and
taught me to read in several languages, French, Russian, Spanish----”
“Doesn’t all that come in the story? Don’t insult our intelligence with
repetitions. Try to emulate the speed of modern fictionists, with
the--shall we say the slow-mindedness of the old? And leave out the
asterisks. We who have crossed into Mystery Land have every right to
know what’s behind the stars.”
“You mean----” she faltered.
“In brief, this: give us a tale with style, but all passages that
should be expurgated left in.”
Dolores, confused rather than enlightened by these specifications,
essayed her earth-life story with what sprightliness she might.
“You know New York City?”
“Do I know New York--I who invented it?”
Her start was fortuitous; although not intended to be humorous, won the
tribute of a chuckle from him at the head of the narrow monk table.
“Since you know New York, King Satan----”
“Call me Pluto,” suggested he. “It is my friendliest name.”
“King Pluto”--she gave him a smileless nod of agreement--“you doubtless
have heard of Harlem flats?”
Again he chuckled. “Some of our best little badger games, jealousies,
murders and other such trivial offenses have been conceived and
executed in Harlem flats. Eh, old Original? We call them ‘incubators
of discontent.’ I have visited a few in person on special occasions,
although generally one of the under-demons proves bad enough to start
the regular Harlem crimes. The _Boulevard des Capucines_, Piccadilly,
_Unter den Linden_, the _Corso_ and a narrow street called Wall are
more usual haunts of mine, offering, as they do, larger opportunities.
But this side-issuance is against the rules. Assume that I am fairly
well acquainted with the cubbies of modern cliff-dwellers.”
“They named me ‘Grief to Men,’ yet I have not meant to be. To explain
how the cruel title came to be forced upon me, I must begin in a Harlem
flat at about my nineteenth year.”
With the tremors of a spent swimmer forced to greater effort against
the tide, Dolores breasted her tale. Through that evening’s recital
and through those of subsequent evenings, she sought to make of herself
a mere entertainer, to remember the “style” demanded, as learned from
the border-line literature of the several tongues at her command, to
conquer her reluctance and lay bare the facts which had been deemed
worthy of so much space in the newspapers of Earth--for sake of those
whom indirectly she was protecting, to tell her tale with aptitude as
impersonal as though its subject were not herself.
Yet in the telling came moments when her continuity broke, when her
desperate attempt was abandoned in something more convincing than
“style.” Conquered by emotions which had come with her from the mortal
world to this strange beyond--emotions of reverence, of love, of
passion, of shame--she would fall silent, unable to proceed. At such
times her hands would shield her eyes, while the shudders of a modest
spirit would plead for reprieve; her head droop until her breast
touched the board; her lips refuse for a space to obey her will to
divert.
Fortunately His Excellency, far from disapproving such violations of
the rules which he had imposed, appeared to regard them as superstrokes
of a talent patent from the start. They lent to the reality of
the tale, prolonged suspense and multiplied his enjoyment in her
sufferings. To him, prone to delight in the inherent worst of devils
and of men, the words she could not force herself to utter often meant
more than those which had fallen from her lips.
Again, when his own impatience, increased by that of the demon
audience, stripped bare her soul and lashed her, with malevolent
threats, into renewed effort, he would chortle aloud from satisfaction
in his mental degeneracy.
From his infinite fund of information regarding persons of importance
whose trails had crossed the girl-soul’s own, he was able frequently to
furnish facts regarding others when, at times, she failed.
The earth-story of Dolores Trent, free in version and filled in from
the super-supply of Satanic intelligence, ensues.